


0

by blueskydog



Series: Question Marks [3]
Category: Bones (TV)
Genre: Developing Friendships, Gen, Humor
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-19
Updated: 2018-08-19
Packaged: 2019-06-29 17:31:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,077
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15734127
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/blueskydog/pseuds/blueskydog
Summary: Hodgins is better at metaphor, but Zack is better at math.An early interaction between our favorite mad scientists.





	0

“You,” Hodgins said, snapping his rubber band a little too close to Zack’s face, “are _so_ one-dimensional.”

Zack looked up from the skeleton he was arranging on a table in the lab. He leaned back a bit to avoid the rubber band’s aftershock. “No, I’m not, and I think someone as intelligent as you would be able to tell that just by looking at me.”

“Are you serious?” Hodgins laughed. “You just proved my point.”

“I don’t understand, Dr. Hodgins.”

“Isn’t that the word of the day?”

“There were five words in that sentence, four if you don’t count your name as a word.”

“God, are you _hearing_ yourself?”

Zack looked exasperated. “ _Yes._ I can hear myself.”

Hodgins held up a hand. “Look, man, it’s annoying enough that Brennan has to be spoon-fed the meaning behind every cultural reference that passes through these doors. Now we have you, her younger, male doppelganger, and if it’s at all possible, you’re even harder to deal with than she is.”

Zack shook his head. “There were so many inaccuracies in that statement I don’t even know where to begin.”

“Begin with this. You’re as flat as a piece of cardboard.”

“Dr. Hodgins, I can only assume that you don’t expect me to take that description literally. If you’d like to ameliorate some of your vexation, perhaps you could explain to me what it is you mean by calling me one-dimensional.”

Hodgins crossed his arms. “Okay. Here goes. Normal people have more than one side to them.”

“Obviously.”

“ _Normal people,_ ” Hodgins pressed on, “are more than just bodies and brains. They do more than talk and react. They think, they have feelings, they have a sense of humor. You, my friend, are none of those. You have only one side—this overly literal, work-focused plane. Your existence is entirely linear.”

“I can admit that your penultimate statement is mostly true,” Zack conceded, “as I usually pay more attention to my work than other facets of my life and have a tendency to misunderstand ulterior meanings behind what people tell me.”

Hodgins smirked triumphantly. “See. Totally one-dimensional.”

Zack crossed his arms. “So you’re saying, if, _metaphorically,_ I were a surface in three-dimensional Euclidean space, I would have only one side.”

“That is correct. Flat as a pancake.”

“I understand that one,” Zack said, “because I know that pancakes are flat.”

Hodgins flung his eyes to the ceiling and spun on his heel to leave. He was stopped a few steps later when Zack called out, “Mobius strip!”

Hodgins turned back to face him. “What?”

Zack held up a finger triumphantly. “Speaking metaphorically, as you’re apparently so fond of doing, I’m a Mobius strip.”

Hodgins looked at him incredulously. “Explain.”

“A Mobius strip is a mathematical curiosity in which a one-sided surface exists in three-dimensional Euclidean space. However, it is not flat.”

Hodgins stared at him.

“I’m a Mobius strip,” Zack said. “I may have only one side, but I am not as flat as a pancake.”

“I can’t believe this,” Hodgins said.

At that moment Dr. Brennan walked in, snapping on a pair of latex gloves. “What can’t you believe, Dr. Hodgins?”

Turning to her, Zack interjected eagerly: “Dr. Brennan, I’m a Mobius strip.”

Brennan looked him up and down skeptically. “I can clearly see that you’re not.”

Zack nodded seriously. “Dr. Hodgins is fond of metaphor. He described me as being one-dimensional, in effect, having only one side when existing in three-dimensional Euclidean space.”

Brennan raised an eyebrow at Hodgins. _Great._ The overprotective professor would probably chew him out later for dissing her charge.

“So I told him,” Zack went on proudly, “if that were true, I would be a Mobius strip.”

Brennan cast him an appreciative smile. “That’s very clever, Zack.”

“Am I the only normal human being in the Jeffersonian?” Hodgins asked.

“Dr. Hodgins, if that is a rhetorical question, as I suspect it is, because you’re prone to them, I suggest you leave us to our work.” Without waiting for a reply, Brennan leaned over the bones on the table, already pointing out her findings to Zack.

“Damn Mobius strip.” Hodgins snapped his rubber band and skulked back to his room.

*

_Four years later_

Brennan sat opposite Zack at the table in the visiting room; they quietly observed each other.

She was late. She and Hodgins had planned to drive together after work to see Zack for his birthday. But a case had held her back until literally the last minute. Hodgins spent the first 59 minutes alone with Zack; they chatted about Hodgins’ recent experiments, tried to outdo each other with increasingly complex equations, and looked at the book of riddles Hodgins got him as a present.

Brennan had knocked on the window, breathless, and Hodgins stepped back into the waiting room to give them the last sixty seconds alone.

She sat, and they said nothing. Hodgins checked his watch; she had thirty seconds left before visiting hours ended for the night.

 _Come on, Brennan._ He hoped she’d thought of something special to do for Zack on the single day all year he’d get to see more than one of his friends. Angela had been by earlier, during her lunch break, with a comic book drawn specifically for Zack about a colony of beetles, each of whom had a name. Even Cam stopped in to say hello.

If only Brennan had put her work aside _just once_. They all knew her visit would mean the most to Zack.

Twenty seconds. Hodgins watched through the window as she reached down to pull something out of her bag. He leaned forward, hoping it was something she’d brought for him as a present.

But it was just a pencil and a piece of paper.

With the pencil Brennan made a quick mark on the paper and slid it over to Zack. When he saw what was on it, he broke into a smile.

Brennan smiled back, and then her time was up. Hodgins watched in bemusement as the guard ushered Brennan out. Zack waved to both of them through the window, then looked back to the paper with the same weird smile on his face.

“What was all that?” Hodgins asked, following Brennan as she headed for the exit.

“I drew him a zero,” she said.

“For his birthday?” Hodgins blurted out, almost angry. “Why?”

Brennan paused to look back at him. “It’s the Euler characteristic of a Mobius strip.”


End file.
